Chapter 35
‘Dur?’ I whispered.
When had I started doing that – using the short, affectionate form I’d only ever heard from his aunt? I wasn’t quite sure. All I knew, crawling back to my feet, eyes clinging to his dark, still form next to Belloc’s second corpse, was that I couldn’t bear to use his full name now.
‘Dur? Are you—’
He rose so abruptly I staggered back and almost fell again.
His face was ghostly pale. His one eye – mercifully, Belloc whispered in my mind – had regained its own colour, black with only a hint of purple.
The expression on his lips didn’t resemble any expression at all; if anything, it looked like a mask worn by something that understood humanity only in theory.
But he stood.
He looked at me.
He said, hoarsely, ‘We need to get you patched up.’
‘I’m fine,’ I rasped, which wasn’t true except in relative terms. ‘I can—’
‘No, you can’t.’ He moved easily, not a falter in his steps as he made his way past the cooling lava and back towards me – as if those familiar, reflexive movements were a lifeline rather than a burden.
‘Are you able to do anything about that arm with your magic? I can use mine to cool the burn, if needed, but I’ve been told it’s unpleasant. ’
Behind him, Belloc’s half-frozen corpse was a lifeless confirmation of that report.
Belloc, who’d killed his mother. Queen Izenore, who’d died with her two children hiding in the same room, who’d sworn with her last breath that her son would be king.
My thoughts were still catching up, would probably be catching up for hours; I swallowed hard, not quite feeling my own wounds, and started, ‘But—'
‘Thraga.’ He closed his eye, briefly. ‘Don’t make me talk. Please.’
Oh.
Distraction.
I could see that.
‘I … I can probably heal the burns a little,’ I stammered, forcing myself to forget about dead mothers for now, twisting my arm to look at where my clothes had charred away.
My skin was an angry red stretch of blisters.
‘Can’t sign at my own shoulder, though. Might need some tools. If I’d had— Oh, fuck, Dur, he took—’
‘Knives,’ he interrupted on an exhale – sounding almost relieved, suddenly. His hands jerked into motion. ‘Yes, thank you. I’ve got something for you. Don’t know what that smith of yours put in the steel, but …’
He drew something from beneath his coat, not finishing his sentence.
Isa.
Isa.
I stared at it for a long, thundering heartbeat, fully and dreadfully sure that reality would unravel the next second and I’d wake up broken and bruised in Belloc’s chains again – but I reached out my fingers, and I touched the smooth turquoise in the pommel, and nothing happened.
Isa. Here, and whole.
I pulled back my hand, fingers shaking. ‘How in the world …’
‘Turns out that volcanic fire doesn’t particularly like ice blades.
’ The forced twist of his lips was a brave attempt at a wry smile.
‘Or anything else it isn’t capable of melting.
It refused to let me take over Belloc’s control until that control slipped away, but it was quite happy to give up these little nuisances. ’
Nuisances.
Plural.
‘How many?’ I breathed.
He flipped Isa around in his fingers, stepped closer, and gently slid the blade into the sheath on my left hip. The right sheath. Of course he knew. ‘I’m rather offended you think I’d stop halfway through, Thraga. I’m not that much of a monster.’
‘You— All of them?’ My voice caught on something mortifyingly close to a sob. ‘No, you— You can’t have—’
He pulled Wunjo from his belt, tucking it safely into the sheath beneath my shoulder, and my knees buckled.
‘Steady.’ His arm locked around my waist, holding me on my feet as he procured Uruz from the depths of his coat and returned it to the sheath on my thigh. Kaunan followed, joining Isa on my left hip. ‘And don’t you dare thank me. I owed you. Still do, quite possibly.’
Still do.
I almost laughed at the lie of it, a light-headed, hysterical laugh.
He could have asked me for my firstborn child as he slipped Ehwaz into place on my right hip, and I’d probably have thought it a fair deal – but I opened my mouth to tell him so, and all that fell from my lips was another watery sob.
‘Ssh.’ He squeezed a fraction tighter on my waist as he pulled Eihwaz from some inner pocket last – padded with what seemed to be a pair of gloves on either side of the blade. ‘It’s alright. It’s over. Let’s get you back to the cave.’
I wanted to tell him I was not a bloody child, that he was as much in need of help as I was, and realised my teeth were clattering too violently to get a sensible word out.
The way down was a blur. Durlain had to keep me upright as we descended the narrow cliff path; by the time we reached the beach, he’d run out of patience and simply scooped me into his arms to carry me towards the cave.
I was beyond pride by then, sinking into his warmth with a relief that bordered on desperation.
His arms were strong around me, his heartbeat a soothing cadence against my cheek, and even though the pain radiated all the way up my arm now, I had my knives and it would all be better soon …
The cave’s darkness enveloped us. For a moment there was nothing but black as Durlain put me down on the smooth stone; then fire flared, and I saw the jagged walls and pillars, the steaming pool at the far side of the cavern, and a single black horse chewing peacefully on the contents of her feedbag.
Smudge.
Not Pain.
I blinked. ‘Where is—’
‘I hoped they’d move you away from the volcano if they assumed I was gone,’ he said, flinging his fire down onto the floor, where it continued to burn.
‘And I hoped someone would mention that I’d left Smudge behind, which I hoped would tell you that I wasn’t actually gone – but in hindsight, I figure that was a little too convoluted to work.
I’ll go get Pain and Belloc’s horse. Do something about that hand and shoulder. ’
Half of me wanted to bristle at his authoritative tone; the other half was glad, grateful, for clear and concise instructions to follow. Hand. Shoulder. Burns. Something to keep my mind off all that had happened while he was gone, at least.
I nodded, and he spun around and strode out again.
With my right palm covered in blistering burns, I had to carve my runes with my left hand; if my blade had been any other than Wunjo, the result would have been too messy to work.
But Kjell’s magic was with me, and the signs I scratched into a hand-sized pebble were as clean as could be expected under the circumstances – naudiz, kaunan, mannaz, hagalaz.
Lack, fire, body, damage, and when I wrapped my fingers around the finished product, the pain in my palm softened almost instantly.
I could have cried with relief.
I gave my skin a few moments to repair itself, then let go of the stone and carved a second one, faster now that I could work with my right hand again.
Pressing it against my burned upper arm gave a single sting of excruciating hurt, followed by the blissful sudden absence of that throbbing agony; for the first time since Belloc’s fire had hit me, I felt like I could fully breathe again.
Then I breathed, and realised my ribs were far from happy.
Nothing seemed to be broken, at least, I concluded after some poking that made me curse but not throw up.
Which was a little glimmer of luck, because I still hadn’t managed to replicate the rather complex formula for broken bones Kjell had shown me some ten years ago; a bruised rib couldn’t be fixed easily, but it also couldn’t puncture any lungs or blood vessels, which meant I could safely numb the pain without worrying about numbing relevant symptoms.
I poured a cup of water from the bottles still attached to my bags, signed a quick formula at it – add, lack, body, damage, water – and gulped it down while the spell was still active. The pain in my chest softened almost immediately.
‘Thank fuck,’ I told the ceiling out loud.
Smudge whinnied reproachfully.
What was next? Food – I should eat something.
The raisin buns at the bottom of my bag were stale and about as hard as the stones I’d used to heal my arm, but they weren’t mouldy, and I was hungry enough not to mind the challenge.
By the time I’d gnawed my way through two of them, the clip-clops of hooves approached outside; Durlain stepped in with two horses on their reins a moment later.
His shoulders loosened just a fraction as he glanced at me. ‘Better?’
‘Bar wasn’t high,’ I said. ‘But yes.’
He got the horses settled in near the exit of the cave, then shook off his long coat, made for my shadowy corner, and took a seat beside me on the floor.
I expected him to say something, but he merely held out his hand in silence – offering me a slice of berry cake he’d presumably nicked from Belloc’s luggage.
I almost told him he could definitely have my firstborn child now, then realised how that would sound out loud and settled for a hoarse, ‘Thanks.’
His smile was faint and unconvincing.
We sat. We ate. The firelight drew flickering shadows across the walls and ceiling; the horses munched happily on their oats.
I stared unseeingly ahead as the night’s events slowly uncoiled from my muscles and the notion of safety finally, cautiously began to solidify in my bones – as the tense silence eventually mellowed into a softer one, a quiet between us that I could almost call companiable.
Which was much better, and also much worse.
We should have been sitting here in companionable silence the previous night, too.
We should have been making plans, playing games, having fun.
It didn’t even matter that he hadn’t kissed me again, and I could perfectly easily ignore the fact that neither of us had gotten anywhere as naked as I’d have liked for us to be …
but he had been an utter prick for no good reason at all, and then he’d saved me and feared for my life, and none of it made sense.
Don’t make me talk, he’d said.
On the other hand, maybe that had been about his mother. Maybe he’d be happy to talk about everything else, if only to keep the memories at bay.
Or maybe he was just waiting for me to go to sleep.
Maybe he hoped I’d propose a game of carette and a round of mutual insults.
Who knew? I’d never been good at comforting people, and something made me suspect Durlain would be just about as good at comforting himself.
The blind leading the blind … but then, I’d accused him of lack of communication before. The least I could do was ask.
I pulled my knees to my chest, lowered my chin onto them, and cautiously said, ‘Anything I can do for you?’
He was quiet for ten, fifteen seconds.
Then he muttered, with startling frankness, ‘I haven’t the faintest clue.’
‘No.’ I rubbed my face, feeling only a slight ache in my palm. ‘No, I was afraid you’d say that.’
‘I don’t even know how I’m supposed to be feeling.
’ His voice was distant and oddly matter-of-fact.
‘I’ve spent sixteen years wondering who he was, and now he’s dead.
You could have died. I could have lost a second person to the same fucking murderer, and it would have been my own fucking fault.
I stepped into Niflheim, which is usually very bad and now just …
another point on the list. Where do I even start? ’
I frowned. ‘Niflheim.’
‘Yes.’ There was a small thud as he rested his head against the wall of the cave. ‘Big, misty place. Dead people everywhere. You might have heard of it.’
‘Don’t be an arse,’ I said impatiently, which was much easier than being considerate. ‘You went down. How are your scars?’
‘The usual,’ he said, tone horribly impassive. ‘Which is to say, I’ve had arrows to the thigh that I enjoyed more. Why?’
That settled it.
It seemed inconceivable, suddenly, that I hadn’t thought of this before.
‘We’re taking a bath,’ I said, pushing myself away from the wall.
‘That is, you’re taking a bath, and if you don’t mind, I’d rather appreciate the opportunity to scrub Belloc off me.
Do you think the water is warm enough as is, or should we use some magic?
I think kaunan could work if I gave it some thought. ’
He gaped at me.
‘Bath,’ I repeated, more slowly now, because two could play that game. ‘Big bucket of water. Hot, if you’re lucky. You might have heard—’
‘Oh, fuck off,’ he sharply interrupted, dragging himself upright without taking his gaze off me. ‘I was an utter shit to you, Thraga. You have absolutely no reason at all to want me naked anywhere near you, and just to be clear, I’m not so desperate for your pity that I—’
‘It’s not pity, you rat-arsed bastard,’ I snapped, then as he opened his mouth, I added, ‘No, you fuck off. I’m not proposing you shag me, for hell’s sake – you need a bath, so get into the fucking bath, and then you’re more than welcome to explain your utter shittery to me.
After you’ve dealt with those bloody scars. ’
He glared at me.
I returned the honour, witheringly.
‘Flames alive,’ he said between his teeth, and began unbuttoning his shirt.